Essentially, when the climax of the show / movie takes place around some big public event such as a concert, performance, sporting event or similar such public gathering that the heroes, for whatever reason, have been brought to. If the concert begins after the climax, or continues to the end credits, it's a Dance Party Ending.

So of course, it's now the perfect target for any evil terrorists or Big Bad who wants to make a statement about how evil they are by blowing it - and any prominent public figures who happen to be there - sky high, or by assassinating the famous person at the climax of the production. And since the body count will start increasing at the end of the show, and the show's already started, that means Our Heroes will have to haul ass to the theatre in order to stop it...

Essentially, the Action Movie Concert Climax involves the Big Damn Heroes bursting in upon some huge public event to save the day and defeat the bad guys. As the numerous innocents who are also at this production unwittingly risking getting blown up or shot aren't enough, a public notable will also be in attendance at the performance to really up the ante - nine times out of ten, (s)he will be bored stiff with proceedings. Expect the bomb to be planted in the piano, primed to explode at the moment the pianist hits the climactic chord, or for the sniper to be hidden on a gantry above the stage.

In some cases, the heroes may have to actually burst onto the stage and disrupt the performance in order to save the day, leading the confused audience to wonder whether this is All Part of the Show (Hilarity Ensues, naturally). Other times, the final confrontation will take place off-stage in the wings or behind the backdrop whilst the oblivious patrons enjoy a bit of culture or sport (except, nine times in ten, the celebrated public notable, who will usually be bored stiff), but in these cases don't expect the heroes to be able to slip away unnoticed without their moment in the limelight; usually, after they've saved the day and are exhaustedly gathering their breath, the curtain will choose that moment to rise, exposing the stunned heroes and the chaos that's just been occurring to the entire audience.

In either case, there will be a moment's confused pause... and then a solitary figure will start clapping. It'll be the President, the Pope or the Queen, who is finding this to be the most interesting thing (s)he's seen in the whole damn production. And once everyone's joined in, usually - but not always, the heroes will figure 'what the hell', and give the audience what it really wants - a Concert Kiss between the smitten love interests.

In this climax, the two lovers are brought together at a concert (or similar public place), usually thanks to the beauty of music (or, less frequently, some other form of artistic expression). It may be a song that the hero has written and is now performing for the love interest, or that the Love Interest's favourite artist - who is, deep down, a bit of a romantic - has been persuaded to sing. This version is almost certain to end in the Concert Kiss.

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Examples of Version A

Anime and Manga

The opera in Cowboy Bebop, sort of: the mark was already dead when he was brought to the opera, but they still get a kidnapping in there, albeit not so publicly.

Basquash!! builds up Eclipse's final concert, and Dan and company, taking Citron's hint, crash it. Like with most things in the show, a giant robot basketball match breaks out. Rouge gets her memories back and something happens with the moon.

Blood+ has elements of this trope, with the final confrontation between Saya and Diva at NYC's Metropolitan Opera.

In the sorta climax of Hayate the Combat Butler's arc just shy of chapter 300, Hayate is at the concert of an idol singer and a person after a picture Hayate has attacks behind the scenes. Hayate finally finds out what they're looking for, and willingly hands it over, but the robots they summoned to force his hand (which were entirely unnecessary as they find out) aren't listening, so Hayate still has to fight it, ending up breaking onto the stage before defeating it.

Comic Books

The climax of Red Menace comes during a huge Christmas parade in Los Angeles. The Red Menace, an anti-Communist agitator trying to provoke a US-Soviet war, planted a stolen Soviet nuke under the parade route.

A Goofy Movie's big climax takes place when Max and Goofy finally make it to the Powerline concert and, as accidentally promised to Roxanne at the beginning of the road trip, perform on stage.

Films — Live-Action

The climax of The Last Boy Scout takes place during a big American Football game (possibly the Super Bowl). A US Senator is the target; slight twist, in that he's a corrupt senator who the Big Bad is targeting because he asked for too much bribe money.

Foul Play takes place during a performance of The Mikado, and features The Pope as the assassination target.

The Get Smart movie takes place during a performance of Beethoven. The target is the President of the United States, and in a little bit of overkill, the terrorists intend to detonate a nuclear device at the end of the performance. (And yes, the bomb is in the piano.)

Played for laughs in The Naked Gun movies; the first movie takes place during a baseball game, where the target is Queen Elizabeth II, whereas the third takes place during the Oscars, where the target is a bunch of random celebrities.

Galaxy Quest features the heroes arriving at a science fiction convention in a space ship, which crashes through the wall. And then Jason finally gets rid of the Big Bad and kisses Gwen - much to the appreciation of the audience, who think it's All Part of the Show.

Not quite an action movie, but the ending of The Godfather Part III takes place at an opera and involves an assassination attempt. The target is a mob boss who survives, but his beloved daughter is killed.

The ending of Strange Days takes place during the Los Angeles New Year's Eve 2000 street celebrations.

And the sequel ends with the music class choir performing at the contest in order to impress the archdiocese and save their school.

In The Sound of Music, the von Trapp family acts as if the big concert is their farewell to their father (who is theoretically about to go join the German navy) and consequently the end of the movie, but then subverts it by escaping during the judging.

In The Man Who Knew Too Much, a murder is planned to take place during the high point of a musical piece to hide the gunshot.

The climax of the David Mitchell / Robert Webb comedy movie Magicians takes place during the finale of a magic show; the tension, however, comes not from having to prevent a murder, but the worry about whether a murder will be committed - the trick involves a guillotine, and the magician in the guillotine (Webb) slept with the wife of the magician operating the guillotine (Mitchell), who later killed his wife (accidentally, he protests; deliberately, everyone else thinks) with the same guillotine. He doesn't.

In Death to Smoochy, the protagonist is a public figure, who is to be shot by a guy in the rafters, at an ice show arena full of children, at the height of the performance.

The finale of Miss Congeniality which takes place at a knockoff of the Miss America Pageant.

In a variant, the climax of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure turns an ordinary series of student presentations into a concert-like megaproduction. The audience responds accordingly, clapping along on cue and raising their cigarette lighters as if it were a rock concert.

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, plays it straight however, with the Battle of the Bands that will determine whether Wyld Stallyns will become the world-famous, peace-and-utopia-bringing band they are destined to be being hijacked by the "Evil Usses", then interrupted by the "Good Usses" and the facedown with DeNomelos.

In the climax to Quo Vadis, the persecution of Christians by Nero leads to Ursus fighting a bull, on which Lygia is tied, as part of a gladiatorial event. Lygia's love interest, Vinicius, watches in horror, fearing for her. Ursus kills the bull, rescues Lygia, and Vinicius rushes down and appeals to the crowd and emperor for the thumbs up.

The latter half of Tomorrow's Starlight in Psionics: The Next Stage In Human Evolution largely takes place at one of these. Long story short: teens with psionic powers on drugs at a concert that's under assault by a shadowy government agency.

El Filibusterismo: The wedding reception of Paulita Gomez and Juanito Pelaez is this. Practically all the highest officials of the Spanishclergy and colonialgovernment are in attendance. Anti-Hero Simoun wants to blow up the entire place and take out all the malcontents of the colonial-Philippine ruling regime, all at onceósadly for him, Isagani sabotages the plan by dumping the detonator into a river, all because he wanted Paulita to be happy.

Live Action TV

An episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer features a more low-key version, where the Monster of the Week is revealed to have been taking part in the school's talent night, and the final fight takes place just before it opens. When the curtain is risen, revealing beheaded demon and all, there's no pause, just a slightly confused silence:

Principal Snyder:... I don't get it. What is this, avant garde?

Married... with Children. Target: the new scoreboard that was supposed to be dedicated to Al, and which Marcy managed to get renamed for Terry Bradshaw. Bud and Jefferson blew it up (and Al) at the designated signal (a cymbal crash); unfortunately, Mr. Bradshaw had already arranged for it to be named for Al again.

Seen in Spooks at the climax of series 3. Iraqi terrorists hold Fiona and Danny as hostages in order to force the Prime Minister to announce an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq at a dinner party that evening held in honour of the new Iraqi government. There is also a terrorist on her way to blow up the dinner party whom Adam convinces to surrender, while special forces storm the building where the hostages were being kept and rescue Fiona. Danny unfortunately does not survive.

The finale of Dark Carnival in Left 4 Dead 2 takes place at an abandoned stadium, where the fictional band the Midnight Riders were scheduled to play. Intense pyrotechnics and pre-recorded songs included.

Western Animation

In an episode of Justice League, Grodd and his Secret Society bring the imprisoned League to a football game in Gotham as a "stage" for publicly executing the team. Of course, they get free (J'onn, disguised as Clayface, playing the part of Big Damn Heroes) leading to the best mass-fight sequence in the entire series. The only "notable" person is "Shana Squires", who gets blown away by the Society's hovercraft before the fighting starts.

South Park: "Big Gay Al's Gay Boat Ride" gives us Jimbo and Ned rigging up a bomb on the rival school's mascot, set to blow when Richard Stamos hits the high F note in "Lovin' You". He hits it...eventually.

Non-romantic version disguised as version A in Rolling Girls. A rock concert is being bombarded by a Buddha statue shaped missile massacre, all of which are harmlessly blown up by the concert hall's built in anti-air defenses. The actual climax was when Misa and Mamechiyo apologized to each other and become friends again. Followed by an epic electric guitar and shamisen rock duet.

Film

The ending of Music and Lyrics, where Alex pens a song he's written himself to Sophie as a gesture of love / reconciliation. In a mild subversion, the Concert Kiss takes place off-stage.

In White Christmas, a performer walks out on a gig at a small town hotel after a dispute with a man; he follows her to her new job singing at a New York City nightclub in order to convince her to come back.

The ending of The Wedding Singer; slightly unusual, in that it takes place on a plane, but it still involves the romantic song and the 'awww' kiss in front of everyone. Help is provided in the form of Billy Idol, who just happens to be on the same flight.

Non-romantic but no less touching example; the end of About a Boy, when Marcus is performing 'Killing Me Softly' in the school talent show to the jeers of his classmates... until Will walks on stage with his guitar to join him, thus making it a comedic performance and diverting the bullies attention away from Marcus to himself.

The ending (or one of them, anyway) of Love Actually involves a romantic variation of the Action Movie version; the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom going to a school play to find the Downing Street tea girl, with whom he's fallen in love. They eventually find a spot backstage to watch the production, the PM not wanting to upstage the kids - and just as they're getting romantic, the curtain rises, revealing that they're actually in the middle of the stage. So much for keeping it low-key.

The entire film August Rush is essentially one long setup for this, a combined non-romantic (parent-child) and romantic (the two parents) version.

Jason Biggs sweeps Alyson Hannigan off her feet during her flute solo in American Pie 2

Fan: "Let's hear it for Petey!"

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlistsubverts it since the title characters reach the secret concert every hipster in NYC has been looking for at the end, but leave just as it (the concert) starts.

Johnny Cash interrupts his own concert to propose to June Carter on stage in Walk the Line. Which is actually how he did it.

In What's Your Number??, Ally interrupts Colin's band performing at a wedding in order to declare her love for him. She is able to sneak on stage by pretending to be another band member and banging a tambourine.

Literature

Not exactly "romantic" love, but love of a sort...The climax of Who Is Bugs Potter. Genius Drummer Bugs is in town for a week playing with a group of high schoolers in an orchestra, but every night he's been sneaking out to clubs and playing with his favorite rock bands. The bands all show up to see Bugs's show.

Done somewhat in James Robert Baker's Tim and Pete in which, Pete performs "I Wanna Be Your Dog" However Tim had left the club by then. Later on Pete says that he performed the song to get them back together.

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